


The Twins' Timeline

by muggle95



Series: Opportunity [2]
Category: Mars Rovers - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 22:25:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17795888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muggle95/pseuds/muggle95
Summary: The real timeline that The Twins is based on (plus a few other interesting tidbits)In case anyone's curious about things Oppy referenced or the relative order of events





	The Twins' Timeline

Mars Exploration Rover (MER) timeline (events relevant to The Twins, plus other highlights)

Spirit=MER-A=MER-2, Opportunity=MER-B=MER-1 (does this naming scheme make sense? Not entirely. Don't blame me, I didn't come up with it)

 

June 10 2003 – Spirit launches

July 7 2003 – Opportunity launches

January 4 2004 – Spirit lands at Columbia Memorial Station

January 21 2004 – Spirit fails to communicate to Mission Control when expected

January 22 2004 – Spirit communicates a fault condition to Mission Control (Spirit was stuck in a reboot loop due to this fault)

January 25 2004 – Opportunity lands, and finds evidence of (acidic) water in the soil around her landing site

February 6 2004 – Spirit restored to working order, Opportunity sent software patch to prevent the same problem

March 5 2004 – Spirit finds evidence of (acidic) water in Humphrey rock

March 9 2005 – Wind significantly clears Spirit’s solar panels

March 10 2005 – Spirit photographs dust devils (I meant to add some quip about the lack of helpful dust devils around the beginning of Spirit's final silence, but I forgot at first, and then I liked the way the story flowed without it)

April-June 2005 – Opportunity stuck in sand dune (identical triplet rover kept on earth used for testing so NASA-JPL could send Oppy the correct sequence of commands to get un-stuck and not stuck worse. Computer simulations also used. If the earthbound triplet has a name, I couldn't find it anywhere.)

Sol 690/”late 2005”/January 6 2006? – Spirit reaches Comanche rock formation and performs analysis

February 2006 – Spirit reaches Home Plate formation

March 16 2006 – One of Spirit’s six wheels stops working. (Since it was a front wheel, Spirit continues travelling, now backwards and dragging its wheel)

“Late March” 2006 – Spirit nearly gets stuck in soft soil, reroutes to new target location

January 4, 2007 – both MERs receive software upgrade to become more autonomous (in reality, this means they could pick up rocks without being specifically instructed to. In fic-land, it perhaps affects Oppy's ability to tell you this story?)

March 2007 – Spirit’s dragging, broken wheel uncovers a patch of silica that appears to have formed in hot springs

June 2007 – dust storms drastically reduce solar power to both rovers, rovers are instructed to hibernate

2008 (I couldn't find anything both noteworthy and detailed, at some point Opportunity leaves Victoria Crater towards Endeavor Crater)

February 6 2009 – wind clears Spirit’s solar panels, Spirit resumes travel around Home Plate (Spirit wasn't totally shut down before this point, but wasn't doing much more than take pictures)

May 1 2009 – Spirit gets stuck in soft soil (NASA-JPL and the same triplet rover on earth begin to model the situation to try to figure out how to get Spirit unstuck)

November 29 2009 – Another of Spirit’s wheels quits turning

January 26 2010 – Spirit mission redefined as “stationary research platform”

March 22 2010 – Mission Control hears from Spirit for the last time (Sol 2208)

March 30 2010 – Mission Control realizes something is wrong when they don’t hear from Spirit

June 3 2010 – Press release (on earth) announcing that analysis of the testing at Comanche in 2005 proved that the rocks investigated had formed in non-acidic water suitable for life

July 2010 – End of Martian winter; Mission Control tries repeatedly to contact Spirit now that she’s getting more sun

May 25 2011 – Spirit’s mission declared complete (Mission lasted 2627 Sols)

August 9 2011 – Opportunity reaches Endeavour Crater

August 6 2012 – Curiosity lands on Mars

February 2013 – study of clay found at Endeavour Crater; “Of all the places studied by Opportunity, this environment at Endeavor Crater once had the friendliest conditions for ancient microbial life.”

March 23, 2015 – Opportunity has driven far enough to complete a marathon

June 2018 – Opportunity caught in planet-wide dust storm

June 10 2018 – Mission Control hears from Opportunity for the last time (battery readout and solar power indicator - interpreted memorably by Jacob Margolis as “my battery is low and it’s getting dark”)

October 2018 – dust storm ends, JPL attempts to resume contact

February 13 2019 – Opportunity’s mission declared complete (Mission lasted 5352 Sols)

 

Sources: (all accessed Feb 14, 2019)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_(rover)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_(rover)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover

https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/mission/science/results

https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/newsroom/pressreleases/20100603a.html

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer20110525.html

https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/mission/rover-status/spirit/2011/all/

https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/5347/esperance-target-examined-by-opportunity-unannotated/

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/opportunity-did-not-answer-nasas-final-call-and-its-now-gone-to-us/

https://twitter.com/JacobMargolis/status/1095436913173880832

https://www.universetoday.com/85923/end-of-the-road-for-spirit-rover

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_(rover)

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is mostly derived from Wikipedia. Spirit's page contained more specific dates, and more details in general, but with Oppy as the narrator focused on her sister's achievements, that worked. Dates reported varied across sources, but not so much that the relative order of events changed, so I didn't try too hard to figure out which one was "right"


End file.
